The Playwrights’ Theatre of East Hampton at LTV Studios will present “Rhinoceros” on Saturday, October 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Rhinoceros (French: Rhinocéros) is a play by playwright Eugène Ionesco, written in 1959. The play was included in Martin Esslin’s essay on post-war avant-garde drama “The Theatre of the Absurd”, although scholars have also rejected this label as too interpretatively narrow.[citation needed] Over the course of three acts, the inhabitants of a small, provincial French town turn into rhinoceroses; ultimately the only human who does not succumb to this mass metamorphosis is the central character, Bérenger, a flustered everyman figure who is initially criticized in the play for his drinking, tardiness, and slovenly lifestyle and then, later, for his increasing paranoia and obsession with the rhinoceroses. The play is often read as a response and criticism to the sudden upsurge of Fascism and Nazism during the events preceding World War II, and explores the themes of conformity, culture, fascism, responsibility, logic, mass movements, mob mentality, philosophy and morality.

Tickets cost $15 in-advance, $20 at the door and VIP seating is available for $35 and includes a drink. Students are $10 with a valid ID. For more details and to purchase tickets please visit https://www.ltveh.org.  Special thanks to Springs Brewery and Bottle Hampton for sponsoring!